


As Sharp As Sunlight

by Amanuensis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Dark, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-10
Updated: 2005-11-10
Packaged: 2018-10-26 11:02:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10785474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amanuensis/pseuds/Amanuensis
Summary: A squicky fate awaits our heroes after their defeat. Can anything be salvaged?





	As Sharp As Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

Author's notes: This fic is part of the "Beloved Enemies" Harry/Lucius Fuh-Q-Fest (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HarryxLucius/), Second Wave. Somehow Sirius Black decided he wanted to tell this story and I had to let him. Go figure.  
Answers Challenge # 141.Voldi has won the war. Harry, Sirius, Remus (any other good guys you want) got captured. Instead of killing them Voldi turns them  
into hermaphrodites, binds their power (slave bracelets anyone?)and  
gives them to his loyal followers (Lucius, Severus) as sex slaves,  
concubines, what ever, to give birth to more wizards. (Edges)  
Warning for MPREG, if you hadn't caught that. And character death.  
Yes, I am very fond of the movie adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale.  
Thanks to Edges-- I love this kinda thing but would have been embarrassed to come up with it on my own!  
Thanks to beta tester Sobriquet, who did a very thorough job (and helped me get rid of the ellipsis plague that was infesting this one). Other mistakes are mine.  
And no thanks to Sirius Black-- I thought this was gonna be lurid and bordering on PWP! Instead he insisted there be a story. Grrr.

 

He's only sixteen.

I want to wrap my arms around him and tell him I'll protect him. More usefully, I want to shove him behind me and tell them to leave him alone, do anything they want to me instead.

Given that they're going to do it to me as well, that's not going to be much help.

He'd tell me he's not a child to be protected. Knowing Harry, he'd try to be the one making the same stand, for me.

We're like that.

Of course, it isn't only my godson that inspires that protectiveness in me. I want to do the same thing for Remus. And he's no sixteen-year-old.

But he's mine, to want to protect as well.

He'd be the next one to join the shoving-behind-and-begging brigade. It'd be utter slapstick under the right circumstances.

Not these.

Right now none of us are in any shape to be wrestling over the right to sacrifice himself for the others.

Harry sits pressed against my side, not moving. Our various bruises hurt less if we don't move.

Remus is not far away, leaning against the wall. He knows I want to be pressed to him, but he's trying to be strong in this, giving Harry the privilege of taking comfort from me. Trying to be one of the adults.

I don't feel like an adult. I feel about as lost as I've ever felt. And I spent twelve years in bloody Azkaban.

And I want to be holding Remy as well. But for Harry's sake I try to show him that Remus and I can be the strong ones here, and he can break down if he chooses.

I'm still not sure I can believe what they're telling us.

The door to the cell opens. But it's not someone bringing a meal. The four of them are all tricked out, robes and masks in place, wands in hand. Doesn't bode well.

The one in front gestures Come.

Even though there are only four of them, we've found out what happens if we try to resist. All three of us get to our feet and go with the Death Eaters.

I want to hold Remus's hand.

Maybe I will.

When we are shown into what Voldemort calls his hall (I still call it his lair), I look at how the number of Death Eaters has swelled since the last time we were here, just days ago, and have to suppress the urge to swallow.

Next to me I hear Harry's breath catch. He's looking-- there, near the center of the room, same place they're pushing us, my God: it's Hermione. Harry doesn't quite run to her, doesn't quite hug her; he looks into her face and clutches her shoulders and she does the same thing to him.

I'm amazed she's still alive. Harry had guessed she would have been killed along with Ron Weasley.

I gently put an arm around her waist for reassurance. Great. Now there are two sixteen-year-olds I have to be strong for.

Remy, I want to hold you. Want to crush you in my arms until you make that little gasping noise that I adore, that they took from me in Azkaban as they took every other good memory that I ever had, that I got back, just in these past two years.

Want to kiss you in front of all of these fucking psychos, wet sloppy kiss in a show of defiance like we're flipping them off. Take a hold of your hair and your face and your cock like I'm going to have you right here and don't give a shit who sees.

Are they ever going to let us be together again?

The masks don't really fuck with my head in the way they used to. I know now they aren't there so much to intimidate, as to provide anonymity. Make it easier for each one of them to kill, if they're called to. That's not exactly reassuring. But I'm no longer scared of the masks themselves.

We're alone in the center of the room.

"And this is all that survived."

Voldemort's voice is a little siblant on the S's.

I should taunt him for having a lisp. But I don't need to make this worse. It isn't just my life on the line.

He can't really intend... what they said.

"Yes, very resilient stock indeed."

No. Oh, no. He wouldn't choose those words unless...

"Muggles are for killing, my little pets. All they're good for. But wizards... Wizards who are my enemies can be made to serve. They can be turned..."

He looks at one of the Death Eaters in a way that tells me it must be Peter.

"Or broken..."

He looks at another, and I see that one's hands clench slightly. Maybe I'm wrong; is that one Peter? No, too tall.

"Or, failing that, simply used."

And he's looking at us again. Neither Harry nor Hermione move, nor make a sound. Good kids.

"It would be a shame not to use such excellent flesh to insure my ranks stay full."

"You can kill me now," says Hermione, her voice gritty. "I'm never going to join you."

They didn't tell her. She doesn't know what he means.

"Used, foolish child. I agree, it is too late for you." He smiled. "But I am curious to see what will happen with your offspring."

I hear her breath catch.

As unnatural as this is going to me for me-- and Harry and Remus-- I can't help but think it might still be worse for her. To be reduced to her breeding capabilities... it seems like the sort of thing every woman must fight against all her life.

Hermione turns her head to look at the three of us.

Doing the math.

She doesn't know what we know.

"Not her," I hear Harry say.

Ah. We're at this point at last.

Remy, forgive me.

"Don't do this to the two youngest," I say. "Remus and I will swear to submit to you without resistance. If you spare the other two." I don't look at Remus when I say this. I can't bear to.

Harry inhales-- Hermione too-- about to protest.

"Actually," says Voldemort, "there is one thing."

That stops me.

He looks toward the Death Eater he called turned. "Which is the werewolf again?" He sounds like he can't be bothered to keep us straight.

That one lifts his hand and points at Remus. "That one," he says, and even from behind the mask, the voice confirms that it's Peter. Oh, that he's still alive. If I could only transform...

What does he want with him?

I can see all four of us protesting No, I am in an attempt to confuse. But what good would it do? Pettigrew knows.

And maybe... just maybe Voldemort plans to spare Remy.

He gestures. "Come here."

Remus gently takes my hand off of his arm-- when did I grab it? I don't even remember-- and steps forward, gestured closer until he's only a few steps away from Voldemort.

Voldemort lifts his hand. There's something in it.

The explosion of the gun deafens me. Remus's blood splatters me.

I don't have to be told it was a silver bullet. Remus is dead before he hits the floor, the back of him covered in blood by the close range of the shot.

No last words. No last look in his eyes for me as I pull his body up to a sitting position, getting more of his blood all over myself.

Is that me, screaming like that? It sounds so distant.

*****

I think they hit me with a spell.

I'm in different clothing. I'm clean, and my hair's damp. No trace of Remus's blood is left.

And they're pushing a cup in front of me.

Harry's next to me. I don't know where they took Hermione.

Another cup, full of the same liquid, is in front of Harry.

Voldemort says, "Each of you is hostage for the other. If you refuse to drink, if you resist what happens, the other will be punished for it. Punished until you comply. If we kill one of you accidently in the process, that will be unfortunate, but not a problem. This is an interesting experiment, but not a necessity."

I hear this because I have to hear it.

Harry's still alive.

I pick up the cup and drain it. It tastes dead. But anything would right now.

I hear Harry inhale as I drink. I guess he can't believe I gave in that quickly.

No. No point in resisting now.

Let them do what they want.

Remus.

Harry takes a hold of the cup.

I almost reach out to dash it out of his hand. But one thing stops me. I don't know what they've done with Hermione.

The potion is already starting to take effect; I feel an alien tingle in my skin, even as I tell Harry, "You don't have to. They can accidently kill me all they want."

He shakes his head. "I won't let you go through this alone."

Only sixteen.

I'm so absurdly proud of the kid. I may start to cry.

It's not for Remus. I won't be able to cry for Remy for a long time.

For Hermione's sake, not for mine, I let him drink.

*****

Once the change is complete, there are tests. And still more potions. And a few spells, on top of that.

One of the potions has a purpose so intricate it pulls my brain out of its numb state to think about it: it somehow guarantees we can't produce sperm, yet still retain the fertility of the female organs that we've grown.

At first I think it might be because they don't want self-conception to occur, but later I learn that can't happen anyway to a magically-created hermaphrodite. The two will cancel each other out. No, I think they do it because they don't want interbreeding to occur between the three of us. Easier than making sure we're kept apart all the time until we're all pregnant.

Who has the skill to make something that complicated?

He's here. He has to be here. I know he isn't the only one capable of creating potions but I feel it.

*****

You can barely notice the changes, really.

Nothing seems different on the inside; though I think the shape of my hipbones might have changed a little. Clothing fits a little differently there.

And you don't really notice the outside changes unless you want to. Easy to ignore, to forget the few folds of skin just behind the scrotum, the passage they cover. Except for the way it feels constantly damp, like you've been sweating.

There aren't many moments for privacy, so the opportunity to explore it is limited.

But at night, I do. I cup my balls with one hand and pull them forward, out of the way, while I push a finger inside. It hurts a little, not in a way that is particularly painful but in a way that seems prohibitive. I stop.

Touching the folds of skin doesn't hurt at all, though. It doesn't quite feel exciting, but more comforting. Like having a wank to put yourself to sleep. But I can see how under other circumstances it would be exciting.

Other circumstances. Ha.

I stop that too, not wanting to wake up Harry. Though for all I know, he's probably doing the same thing.

*****

I think about how Remus would not want me to be numb.

I won't risk them harming either Harry or Hermione. But I won't be completely passive either.

"So who do we get to fuck, then?" I sneer when the tests and the potions and the spells seem to have run their course, and Harry and I are confronting them again. "I hope mine's cute, that's all I can say. Not just for fucking, of course. I just don't think I could stand being the mother of an ugly baby."

Voldemort smiles. "How charming."

I smile wider. Harry looks at his feet but I think he might be trying to stifle a laugh. I hope so. It'll have been worth it just for that, if so.

Voldemort turns and speaks to the six Death Eaters behind him. "You have the option to remain masked, you know. I can have them restrained. Blindfolded. If you choose."

Before I have the chance to feel panic again-- six of them, god, no-- the two in front shake their heads slightly. Neither looked at each other before doing so; this is not the first time this has been discussed.

Voldemort shrugs. "Very well."

One steps forward, and unmasks.

Yeah, I recognize him. Haven't seen much of him since our Hogwarts years, but he's unmistakable. Lucius Malfoy.

He looks toward Harry.

It hits me like a physical punch. "Don't," I say stupidly. After all this, do I think they will stop for anything? What can I promise them?

But the idea of Lucius Malfoy fucking my godson, let alone to get him pregnant, is almost enough to make me go to my knees and beg.

And if I thought there was any chance in hell that they'd listen to me, I'd do it.

Harry takes a step back. "Malfoy..." he says, his voice cracking.

Oh, god, Harry, don't break down. I'll fight. I swear, I'll fight them all, even magic-inhibited as I am, as we both are, and then they'll hurt me, and I don't care, but they'll hurt you worse.

He doesn't break down. He looks like he's going to fall down any minute, but he doesn't.

Lucius steps closer to him. I can see Harry trying to stand his ground.

Lucius looks toward Voldemort, who nods once. Then Lucius starts to reach a hand towards Harry, stops, and gestures instead. He takes a step towards the open door, his eyes still on Harry's, and Harry makes himself take a similar step. It looks like a mouse transfixed by a cobra, for all that my godson is stronger than even I have imagined.

He tears his gaze away to look at me. "It's okay, Siri," he says, and I feel my heart constrict all over again.

He follows Lucius out the door, and two of the masked Death Eaters follow. To... stand guard, I hope. I hope that is all.

I try to summon back that cockiness to face Voldemort. "Got them a honeymoon suite, did you? How generous."

The second of those two Death Eaters doesn't step forward. He removes his mask where he stands.

Goddammit, I knew he was here.

*****

The room has a bed and that's all. No windows either.

I wish I could see a window. I haven't seen daylight since our capture.

"So. Peter didn't want me? I'm crushed."

Severus grimaces and looks away.

And then does something that surprises me. He answers.

"Voldemort did not make the offer to Pettigrew. He's pleased with Wormtail's loyalty, but doesn't think he quite deserves a part in this kind of experiment."

"And you do?" It's a petty little dig. Severus is brilliant.

Another grimace. "It's a loyalty test. I know that."

I can believe that. Snape always walked the line, trying to figure out which would be the winning side.

"Well, don't worry," I say. "I won't make it difficult for you. You won't get any begging for mercy from me, Severus. You can have your wicked way with me all you want."

 

I step over to the bed and set one knee on it, still facing him, in a mockery of invitation. "Answer one question for me, though: who got Hermione?"

Severus doesn't move. Then: "Draco Malfoy."

"Voldemort must have a high opinion of Malfoy blood." I come up with another sneer. "Looks like you got in just under the wire."

He doesn't say anything. "Where's she being kept, then?" I ask.

"Separately," he says, answering but not particularly helpful. "Draco didn't like the idea of the three of you being kept together. Even if she couldn't conceive by you, he didn't want his... partner... sleeping with anyone else."

I snicker. "You're not a very good villain, are you, Severus? Partner. A good villain would have said something like prize, or spoils. Or maybe gone all out and said concubine. How about breeding cow? That one's good."

He doesn't respond to that either. He won't rise to my gibes, but he'll answer questions. I should use that.

"Will we get to see her?"

"I would think so. She didn't need to be with you during the preparation you went through, since she only required one test, to see if she had any fertility problems. She didn't."

"And we appear to have passed with flying colors, haven't we?" Hard not to dig at him. Focus on questions. "You put those potions together, I assume."

He nods.

"Did you know beforehand who they were for?"

He hesitates, then nods again.

"Did you make two or three doses?" I can't help it. It's said with all the venom I feel.

He doesn't answer at first. Then he says, tightly, "I had no say in the decision to murder Remus Lupin."

I expected him to say I had no part in it. Which would have been lying, as the son of a bitch made no attempt to stop it, did he?

But he used the word murder. Whether that was for my benefit I don't know.

I think about Remy all the time. He is my reason for wanting to die; he is my reason for making myself defy, and sneer, and taunt. And live. In a way just a little different from the way Harry and Hermione are making me stay alive.

Living and staying alive aren't the same thing. Believe me, I've known that for a very long time.

But trying to talk about Remus with Severus makes me very, very tired.

"Can we get this over with," I say, and my voice isn't angry, or sarcastic.

He looks at me, nods slowly. I suddenly notice that we've had the same arms-tightly-folded pose since we came into the room together.

I think this would be easier for me if he were playing the villain role. But he obviously finds that distateful.

I wonder if he's doing this because he has to, or because he actually wants to. If it were the latter he'd hide it. He wouldn't want me to know.

I don't look at him as I pull off the shirt and trousers that I'm wearing. That are all that I'm wearing.

But as I sit down on the edge of the bed, I do watch him as he gets undressed. I don't see any reason why I should make things easier for him during this.

He doesn't have the physique I do, but then, I worked on it. And he's paler than I'll ever be, even with an equal lack of sun.

"How do we do this, then?" I say, not minding that the sarcasm is coming back. I don't have any more questions that I really want answers for.

He shows me.

That surprises me.

I still expected him to be answering my sarcasm with his own. Or at least to become impatient with it. Why is he not?

Instead, he sits down next to me, puts a hand on my shoulder, and-- before I can stop him-- kisses, not my mouth--I think he knows I wouldn't sit there for that, not even under threat-- but the side of my face, back by the hairline.

What the hell is that?

...Maybe he does want to do this after all. Oh, god.

I could shove him away, demand what he means by kissing me like that. By kissing me at all. This is Severus fucking Snape, after all, and I know perfectly well that he always hated me, and that the feeling was mutual.

But that hand on my shoulder is starting to push me back, and if I stop him now... well, he's doing what I asked, isn't he? Getting it over with...

Remy.

No, I'm not going to think of him now. Not with Severus leaning over me, his hands on my chest now, and one of them moving to my waist.

Is he going to touch my cock? I don't want him to. He doesn't fucking need to, for this.

He separates my knees with one hand, slowly. I try to cooperate, but it's not easy.

His other hand is at my neck, stroking. Why? It seems to be a purpose in itself.

When that hand moves from my neck down to my chest again, I realize that that is the purpose. Just... stroking. Trying to get me to respond to his touch. "Don't," I say, involuntarily, as soon as I realize that. I'm immediately upset that I let him know that disturbs me.

His mouth is near my ear: "I don't expect you to feel anything but hate for me, Black, but I am not interested in hurting you any more than necessary. Believe it or not, as you wish. I am not trying to humiliate you; I am only trying to make the physical process easier."

The hand on my chest is definitely getting a reaction from me, which is unsettling. Remy used to tease my nipples with his tongue for what seemed like hours, waiting until I was begging for it, beyond hard.

In fact I'm starting to get hard now. And... and that's not all. I can feel something tightening, beneath my cock, all the way down to the vaginal opening behind my balls. It's completely foreign and for a moment my erection softens.

But after a moment curiosity overcomes the oddness of it, and I have to admit the feeling isn't at all unpleasant. I contract the muscles there in response, as if trying to grasp something, and the feeling intensifies. My cock's rising again.

The hand that was between my knees is touching my balls, lifting the sac out of the way to stroke the folds of the vulva behind it. Suddenly the sensation isn't at all comforting; it's electric. I get the feeling that would be better if the stroking was directed a little more to the front.

Yes, I slept with girls as well as boys, in school. I wasn't particularly accomplished but I had the theory explained to me. That doesn't mean I'm at all prepared for being able to actually feel this.

The fingers-- I have an easier time of this if I don't think of them as Severus's fingers-- the fingers do move more toward the front, grazing over what has to be my clitoris, and suddenly my thought that I didn't want Severus touching my cock is completely abandoned; the sensation of having that little spot stroked is so keyed into the same feelings I have when my cock's touched that I suddenly can't stand to have it ignored. How the hell can something that small feel that good?

I curve my own hand around my cock, not caring. "God...!"

Severus is blessedly silent. I can't imagine a word he could say right now that would not make me cringe to remember it, later. He keeps working those folds, that spot, and his other hand comes to join mine on my cock.

Thank god he doesn't try to kiss me again, or put his mouth anywhere else on my body. I couldn't stand remembering that either.

There is a hazy length of time where Severus continues his attentions on both sets of my genitals and I almost forget everything except what I'm feeling, until I find myself using those unfamiliar muscles to pull at the finger he's sliding into me, into something that feels nothing like the burning sensation of having my arse entered in that way, something that's moist and slick like no other part of my body has ever been, and yet hungry in the same way that my cock is. Again, I can't let myself think about it or I might try to push him away, and I can't risk that. And right now don't want that.

And then he's moving from my side to move his body over mine, and I can't help it, all I can think of is Remus, but Remus would be pushing my knees back if he were going to top me in this position, and Severus isn't, he's just pushing my thighs further apart, and the head of his cock is suddenly pushing against the part of my body that I didn't have a few days ago, and still it opens to let him in, nothing, nothing at all like sex with Remy, almost obscene in how easy it is this way, I can hardly stand it.

There's a moment of pain when he pushes inside, but it's over so fast, again, nothing at all like anal penetration, which is never that easily over and done with, that I'm absurdly on the verge of saying, "Is that it?"-- which would mean I'd never be forgiven by any females of my aquaintance if they found out, ever-- and I'm being fucked to my depths in a position I never thought I could be had in.

God help me, it still feels good. My cock is trapped between us, and that in itself doesn't feel so different-- the friction is bringing me closer, and I start to wonder where I'm going to feel it when I come, if I come.

One of Severus's hands is on my arse, the other on my shoulder again. Remy used to like to cup his hands at the small of my back...

...No. I'm not going to think of him like that, not while this is happening. If I have to think about him, I'm going to remember the full moon, the times I chased him down under it, hound and wolf, animal senses knowing the scents were not quite right, but the human underneath overcoming that instinct, both of us howling that territorial sound that meant You are mine, yet never meaning a challenge, as it would have been if we'd truly been beasts.

Before the memory can tear me apart, it brings a surge of arousal, and that's all I need, between that and the feeling of Severus fucking me and my cock being pressed with each thrust of Severus's hips. And it's not a question of where I feel the orgasm; I feel it everywhere. My cock spurts, my vagina tightens, my clitoris suddenly becomes one with both of these other sites of sensation, and everything is shortly so achingly sensitive I can barely stand it as Severus continues to thrust until he reaches his own climax.

I feel him come inside me, a wet trickle that joins the rest of the wetness within me. He shudders, does not collapse on top of me, no. He waits until the shuddering has subsided, pulls himself out, rolls to his back next to me, breathing hard.

I wonder if it was worse this way, or if it would have been worse if he'd fucked me like a man.

Not to say that he still won't. I'm sure he has permission to do whatever he wants with me, as long as I'm not damaged.

Or at least healable.

It's a while before either of us speaks. I don't have anything to say and I'm determined to keep looking at the ceiling, so it's Severus who speaks first.

"When we leave here," he says, voice neutral, "you'll be taken back to the cell. Instructions have been given to make it more comfortable, though they will do what they can to leave you with very little that could be a weapon. The guards at the door also have orders to listen to any reasonable requests you have of them, regarding things like temperature, food, that sort of thing."

"Whose generosity do we have to thank for that?"

He doesn't answer. Suddenly I realize that it isn't because he's ignoring my question as a gibe.

"You arranged that, didn't you?"

He still doesn't answer.

"You're the closest thing they have to a mediwizard, aren't you? You're the one making all the pregnancy decisions."

At last he says, "They'll have a mediwizard. When one becomes necessary."

"Yeah, but until then, you're it, aren't you? If I start craving ginger ice cream, you gonna get it for me?"

I don't know why I picked that. Remus was the one who liked ginger ice cream.

"Actually," says Severus, "ginger's a treatment for nausea. Particularly in pregnancy."

He knows about this stuff. I was right.

"You don’t have a potion for morning sickness?"

"There are," and now he's lost that neutral, almost apologetic tone he's had the entire time he's been in the room with me, and sounds more like his surly self, "numerous potions to induce fertility, multiple spells to enhance it, and even dozens of good-luck charms aimed directly at conceiving or selecting gender or everything down to eye color, but as far as magical means that are actually used during pregnancy..." I sense him shake his head. "Not so many of those. Few are willing to make such tests on a pregnant individual and their unborn offspring."

Does he mean... shit. "Is that part of what's intended for us?"

He sits up suddenly, looks down at me. "No, Black. Voldemort wants children of your blood. Not fodder for gestational experimentation."

"Don't say that like I'm scared of the idea," I say coldly. "I don't particularly care what happens to me any longer."

He shakes his head. "No. I don't suppose you do."

He gets off the bed, gathers his clothing and dresses. Just before he leaves the room he looks at me as though he's going to say something else.

But he turns and leaves without saying it.

*****

The cell, as promised, has been made more comfortable. The temperature is a little warmer, and there are two mattresses provided, though nothing like bedframes. Nothing that we could make into weapons, Severus said.

I'm alone there for hours.

Not 'til much later do they bring Harry back.

His body language doesn't quite say don't touch me but neither does he look like he wants to be touched in comfort. He sits down on the other mattress and falls back on it.

"You all right?" I say, wanting him to say yes, and at the same time wanting him to say no so that I will have a reason to go over and touch him.

Dammit. God damn this.

He nods. Cranes his head around to look at me. "You?"

"Yeah," I say. "Except this craving for pickles."

His eyes widen. "Does it really happen that fast?"

"Joke."

"Oh."

"...Are you -- hurt?" It's so stupid. I hate myself for asking it.

He seems to be thinking. He shakes his head, not looking at me.

What the hell else can I say? Do you want to talk about it? Well, he kept you for a long time? God.

"Siri?"

I swallow. "Yes, Harry?"

He reaches out a hand to me, still without looking at me. "Hold my hand?"

I take it, try not to squeeze too hard. I can feel Harry trying to do the same.

The next thing he says is almost too quiet to hear: "That...was my first time..."

I spend the next few hours silently playing a mental game with myself: Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy in a room, at my mercy. Which one would I kill first.

*****

Spells to detect pregnancy, it turns out, are useful about 3 days after the event. So to make sure an opportunity is not missed, we have another session two days later.

Session. Yeah, that's a nice gentle word for it.

This time Severus and I have even less to say. Which should suit me fine, except it leaves me alone with thoughts of Remus.

Severus doesn't try to kiss me on the mouth this time either. But he does kiss my shoulder, and my chest. I can't tell him not to because I still don't want him to know how much he gets to me, doing that.

I come, again. He sees to that.

He doesn't get off me quite so quickly this time. Finally I look at his face, that short distance above mine.

He looks, once again, like there's something he wants to say.

"Black..." he says. "I'm ... sorry about R--"

"Don't." I sit up and push him off me. Our bodies separate with a wet noise that I didn't know bodies could make. It makes me feel sicker than I already do. "Don't you dare mention his name. Don't you dare."

He's sitting on the bed with his palms flat on its surface behind him, where he caught himself after I pushed him. He doesn't speak.

At last he gets up, dresses, and leaves.

I get dressed in the presence of the guards who've come to take me back to the cell, not caring if they stare. You can't see much difference that way anyway.

Harry's gone much longer this time as well.

*****

All those potions, all those spells and charms. All that effort to turn the two of us into hermaphrodites, and make sure we're fertile, and know when we're ovulating.

And Hermione's still the first one of us to conceive.

Voldemort comes to see her when the charm shows her double aura. The smile he uses for being genuinely pleased is actually grislier than the evil smile he usually bestows.

This is the first time we've seen Hermione in a week, and she pleads to be allowed to spend some time with us. Voldemort indulges her, as a reward. We're allowed to go walking through the stone corridors, with guards in attendance. She looks as though she wants to cling to Harry's arm, but is afraid to.

Draco Malfoy was there when Voldemort came as well.

I can hardly ask her for details either, can I? No matter how I wrap it up in all the genuine concern I have for her, it'll sound awful. I can't help but want to know if she's been harmed, but what can I do about it if she has?

Besides, she's pregnant now. They'll be careful. Snape will see to that.

...That's wild. I'm starting to think of Severus as someone with our best interests at heart.

They'd be so pleased to know that.

We've got to be careful.

*****

The same charms that said Harry and I weren't pregnant also said that this was no longer a fertile time for us.

So when Lucius comes for Harry the following day, I find myself rising to my feet to protest.

"We're-- he's not..." I start to say. And stop.

I shouldn't be so naive. Not at my age.

No, we might be just brood mares to Voldemort, but Harry... Harry and Hermione both...

I think about asking Lucius what it would take for him to leave Harry alone. I look at Lucius and imagine offering myself in Harry's place, if he just wants something to fuck.

I think about how that would seem to Lucius--me, almost as old as he is, versus sixteen-year-old virgin-when-he-got-to-him Harry.

Still might be worth a try.

There's a hand on my arm. "Don't, Siri," says Harry. "Please."

I realize it's more important at this moment for me not to shame him.

I let him go.

*****

When he returns much later it's after the cell lights have been dimmed. (I'm grateful that they let us have some idea of day and night. They don't have to be that nice.) So I'm not sure if I'm properly seeing what I think I see.

At first I think he might have been hit. His mouth looks swollen. And then I see the marks on his neck.

He's already sitting down on the mattress and I move to him. "Harry? Are you hurt? Did that--"

I stop what I was going to say.

Fuck.

I know what that is. He wasn't hit. He looks absolutely the definition of freshly shagged, as they say.

Harry looks at me-- and sees something in my eyes.

I didn't mean for it to be there. But he sees it.

He pulls away from me. "Leave me alone."

"Harry-- I didn't--" Shit.

His back to me, he draws away further. "I said don't touch me!"

I am such a fucking git.

I move away, trying to collect my thoughts before I speak.

I wait a while. I don't want him to cut me off right away and I've fucked up badly.

Finally, I say, "I'm sorry."

He doesn't say anything, or turn towards me, so I go on, trying to get out the most important things: "It's my fault. All I can think is, you're my godson, and I should have been able to do something to protect you, and I haven't been. It makes me so angry that it makes me stupid. I'm sorry."

I take a deep breath. "I'm not angry at you. I could never be angry at you. It's not like you have a choice. It's okay. Whatever you're feeling is okay. Whatever you're doing is okay. I'm sorry, Harry."

He still doesn't respond or look at me, and I can't think of anything else to say that wouldn't be repeating myself. I turn away and lie down.

*****

I'm awakened by someone curling up against my side. It's him.

"Siri?" he says, and his voice is thick. I don't think he's crying but he sounds miserable.

"I'm here, Harry. It's okay."

"Is it awful?"

It takes me a moment to understand.

"Severus, you mean?"

I feel him nod.

Great. How do I answer that one?

Well, certainly not with a that's personal business, Harry. I owe him answers since I can't give him anything else.

"Not really." I put an arm around him. "It's odd. Not the same as what I'm used to... but not so different, either... same kind of intimacy..." I realize I'm starting to retreat behind big words. "Um. I enjoyed it. Physically. Yes. Is that what you wanted to know?"

A pause. Another nod. "Part."

How do I tell him that it's all right to respond to the rapist who's fucking you to get you pregnant?

Hopefully I just did.

All right, how do I tell him that it's okay to feel guilty about it?

And okay to NOT feel guilty about it?

*****

Severus doesn't try to take advantage of me during this time.

Never thought I'd be grateful to the snarky little shit.

Don't like feeling grateful. Arrgh. There's a conflict for you...

*****

Days later, I experience my first period.

I take back EVERYTHING I said about women having too little to complain about.

I complain more than Harry does. How pathetic is that?

*****

With Hermione's pregnancy come some unexpected benefits for all three of us. Someone decides exercise is good for both pregnant individuals and those trying to become pregnant, as well as mood-lifters like companionship, so we get to go on those guarded walks through the place most days.

Hermione isn't particularly sick, though there's hardly anything glowing about her. We find out that Draco isn't leaving her alone just because she's pregnant, either.

She shares her feelings about that with us in hushed tones: "I'm glad to be expecting, already. It makes it easier. I think you'll see. Not because the pressure's off, though that's part of it." She gets even quieter. "The baby's protective, you see. As long as it's there, I know they don't want anything to happen to me. So I don't want anything to happen to it. So that means I... I don't have to fight him. I felt like I should have, before. Anything so that I couldn't blame myself for letting them do this to me. But there was the two of you to think about... but that still wasn't enough. Now... now it's enough. I can't let anything happen to the pregnancy, so I don't feel guilty about not fighting."

Harry says, "You don't have to feel guilty. Not about fighting or about not fighting."

He did get it.

Whether he believes it about himself I don't know, of course.

*****

Lucius doesn't leave Harry alone even during the time he's on his period. That just seems so fucking evil to me. Not distateful, just evil.

Harry says to me, that night: "Did you know that orgasm helps those cramps?"

"...No." How the hell would I have known that?

"Does. I... you can see for yourself. I won't watch. Or listen. I promise." I imagine how his face must be flaming when he says that.

Despite my own discomfort at the idea of wanking off not ten feet away from my own godson, even if he is on another mattress, I was the one whinging the loudest about the cramps.

I find he's right.

*****

When the charms indicate our potential for fertility is on the rise, Severus and I share the room again.

I ask him if any of us can be permitted to go outside. At least see outside.

He says it's not up to him.

"Yes it is," I say. "I think you are making the medical decisions."

"That one wouldn't be a medical decision. It would be one of security."

"Oh, come on, Sev."

His mouth twitches. "Don't."

"Oh, why not, Sev? 'M I making you uncomfortable? Wouldn't want to do that, would I?" I make a show of flopping belly-down on the bed, my chin propped on my fist. "Want me to buy an hour of daylight off of you? I could suck your cock for it. I'm very good at that, so I've been told."

Severus has his hands curled into fists at his sides. Suddenly I recognize something: he was the Death Eater that Voldemort called broken, that day.

"You're trying to get me angry before we-- before I do this to you. Why do you want to do that, Black?"

"You're the one that they've put in the position of provider. The one we can wheedle at for favors. That I have to ask for favors. You think I don't see that?"

He glares. Good. I like it when he glares. Better than this whole attitude of apology he's been carrying when he's around me.

At last he says, "I have better control than you seem to think, Black. You will not goad me into hurting you."

 

I smile. "That a dare?"

"No." He starts to undress.

Seeing no reason to be stubborn about it, so do I.

When he comes to the bed, he puts a hand on my shoulder and applies pressure that indicates he wants me to turn over onto my stomach. It gives me a moment's pause but I do it.

He straddles me on the bed and his hands ghost down my sides until they come to rest on my hips, and he makes me lift them a little. He starts stroking between my legs, creating an erection without even touching my cock just by paying attention to the increasingly damp orifice behind my scrotum. I shift on the bed so that the erection is less painful.

The bastard spends the longest time stroking me. I think any minute I'll feel him push inside me but I don't. Soon I'm panting, pushing my face against the pillow to try to muffle the sound. That only makes me need air more. Stupid.

Severus slides his other hand around my hip and takes a hold of my cock. Somehow he manages to maintain the light fingertip touch that my clitoris seems to prefer and yet fist my cock in that other hand with much firmer pressure at the same time. He still hasn't tried to penetrate me, but I barely process that as I come, not bothering to hide the groan as my cock spasms and shoots in his grip, my clitoris pushing towards his wet fingers at the same time.

Not until that is over do I feel him shift behind me, his cock pushing into the sensitive but undeniably relaxed opening of my vagina as his weight settles on my back.

And he pushes one of those wet fingers against my anus, and enters it at the same time.

I shudder so deep I think I'm going to come again right away. Oh god. Oh....

Both his cock and his finger stay inside me after he comes. I feel his lips on my shoulder blade, kissing me in that same gentle way he did on the previous days.

I wonder if he's been with a hermaphrodite before. They're hardly common, but their creation to allow men to conceive children has an old history. Maybe he's got a kink for them.

Maybe Lucius Malfoy does as well.

*****

Harry conceives that month.

He's utterly stoic about it when the charm reveals it, and when Voldemort and Lucius are brought in to be shown the result. But he does break down when we're alone in our cell, clinging to me as hard as I do him.

After he's calmed down a bit, I make a few jokes about disowning him for getting knocked up out of wedlock. It startles a choked laugh out of him, and I'm glad I'm good for something after all.

*****

Lucius doesn't give Harry up then either.

When he comes for Harry later that same day that his pregnancy was revealed, I think I see something in Harry's eyes I didn't expect to see.

Relief.

And I don't know if it's just an end to the suspense, or something more.

I tell myself that what I told Harry was true. He has nothing to be ashamed of.

He's been with Lucius Malfoy most of the days since we were changed. And I have every reason to believe he's done a pretty fair attempt at seducing Harry.

Pretty fair job of it, too. Maybe. Maybe.

If Lucius abandons him, the kid loses more than just physical affection.

Did I just call it that?

*****

When I'm still not pregnant the next month, Voldemort shows up to view the charm's results with an air of impatience. Severus, who is there, tells him that nothing is wrong, that even with perfect conditions, there's only a twenty percent chance of conception in any given cycle.

"Indeed," says Voldemort. "Perhaps you should make one more effort, just in case. Since these things are so... imperfect."

I ask Severus, when we're alone, "Were the three of you tested before this began? You and the Malfoys?"

"Of course. And there's no question of incompatibility between our gametes. That was tested as well."

"Was what you told Voldemort the truth, or were you bullshitting?"

He gives me a stare. "It was the truth. And do you honestly think you are not being overheard, Black? Anywhere in this place?"

Really. You were the one who tried to apologize to me about Remus, you shit.

Unless that was calculated as well.

But then, why caution me?

It makes my head hurt thinking about it. I shut up and let him fuck me.

*****

Harry is very careful. More careful than I could have guided him to be.

His requests, designed to maximize our comfort, are neither too frequent or demanding. Most of them relate to food. The kid gets us bottled water, for god's sake. He's good.

But they still won't let us outside.

*****

Besides the walks with Hermione, we also have a short session between the three of us and Severus a couple of times a week, regarding questions we have about our pregnancies. Their pregnancies, I should say. I get to listen in but am not in a similar condition yet.

Though I like the way that Severus can't pretend he isn't the mediwizard substitute any longer. He can't be vague about that any more.

I watch Severus while the others ask him questions: is it normal to be so sleepy, to be nauseated in the evening instead of the morning, to think the mattress stuffing looks delicious. (The answer to that last one turns out to be yes, though Severus asks Hermione to please try to resist that impulse.)

None of us ask the most burning questions of all: are we going to see the little grubs after they're born? Are they going to have us make more?

Or do we get disposed of after this experiment is over?

I think Hermione didn't have it quite right. The pregnancy isn't protective.

The pregnancy is finite. It's the delay of the pregnancy that's more protective.

*****

Hermione, of course, starts to look pregnant first. But it isn't anything startling on her.

Not long after she has that swallowed-a-small-melon look and thinks she's starting to feel the first flutters, I'm brought back to our cell after another session with Severus and find Harry sitting with his shirt off, running his hands over the convexity that his lower belly is starting to become. It takes everything I have not to stop in my tracks.

Yeah, I know that's what's planned for me too. That isn't what I'm thinking when I look at Harry, though.

God, I want to kill them all.

"The Dursleys called me a freak, you know. Because of my magic."

No. Don't, Harry. You're supposed to be the one with the unpredictable hormones; I don't want to start crying here.

"You think if they could see me now--"

"You're not a freak, Harry." I sit down next to him, put my hands on his shoulders. It seems important that I show him I'm not afraid to touch him. "How far'd you get in History Of Magic class?"

He looks at me.

"There were wizard monarchs who took potions to become hermaphrodites, so that they could bear their children themselves. They had to make sure no one could ever accuse them of not being the fathers of their own children. That's how it started, you know. If monarchs did it willingly, you think anyone ever called them freaks?"

He seems to be thinking about that. "Probably behind their backs."

"Yeah, but if anyone found out about it, the monarch could cut their heads off. See? Hermaphrodites were bad motherfuckers."

I make him smile again. Maybe I need to ask for a little cap with bells next time; I seem to have found one useful thing to do for Harry.

*****

Remembering that thought later, another comes to me.

Harry and Hermione are both pregnant, and I'm not. What they said about each of us being hostage for the other shouldn't apply anymore. If I do something, something they don't want me to do... they probably will punish me for it, and not the other two. They wouldn't risk that. Not anything physical, anyway.

The thought's empowering. I have to be careful. Can't throw that away on anything small.

But it's good to know that I can watch for opportunities.

*****

Lucius's appetite for Harry does not seem to be diminished by the changes in his appearance.

And I'm grateful for that.

That is just so wrong, to be grateful for that.

But Harry needs so much to know that he's wanted. That he isn't a freak.

I get the courage to ask Harry about it at last by couching it terms of concern for the pregnancy.

And Harry tells me.

Tells me that Lucius was gentle with him at first, and then, as Harry started to overcome his initial fear, moved from gentle to thorough. When Harry got pregnant, he backed down just a bit towards gentle again, though not completely.

Though Harry does not cry during this confession, nor does he tell it quickly, I still get the impression of a dam bursting. He wanted very badly to tell it. Perhaps he is using the pretense of the pregnancy as well.

And Harry admits that he looks forward to his hours with Lucius. Lucius treats him like something wanted, like something he's hungry for. Harry knows very well it's probably all quite calculated.

But Lucius could have stopped after he became pregnant.

"I don't think it's completely calculated," I tell him, knowing he needs to hear that.

Should I hate Lucius Malfoy more for this, or less?

I hate that I'm even asking myself that.

I suppose it gives my mental exercise, of which one would I kill first, him or Voldemort, a solution.

I don't want to lose any of my mental exercises. They keep me from thinking about Remus.

*****

When the charm shows that I, too, have a double aura, five months from the time they turned me into a hermaphrodite, it's my turn to feel that unexpected emotion.

Relief.

I had thought delaying the pregnancy was protective. But the looks Voldemort was giving me and Severus were making me unexpectedly nervous. I was starting to have ideas that he was going to swap out Severus for Pettigrew after all.

Oh, yeah. Believe me, that's the wildest of all. That I'd feel relief that it was going to stay Severus.

Though I suppose, with me being pregnant at last, it isn't going to stay anybody. Severus has never tried to have sex with me when I wasn't fertile. I shouldn't expect him to do anything different now.

I shouldn't have gotten confused like that.

*****

But two weeks later, there is blood on my thighs, and I forget for a minute that it isn't just a period again, forget that there is no period when you're pregnant.

It's a very early miscarriage. No spells are needed to complete it; it really only seems like a slightly heavier period after all.

Voldemort, with Severus accompanying him, comes to see me. I can't quite read his expression.

"Those are old witch's tales," says Severus, in response to something unspoken. "There isn't anything he could have done to cause it. Not without magic. Not this early."

Oh. That's what that look was.

Voldemort gives him that look now: mistrustful, angry. But at last he says, "Can he begin again soon?"

Severus nods, after a pause. "Ovulation usually occurs within the month."

"Good." Voldemort leaves the cell. Severus goes with him, not looking at me.

Harry asks me if I'm sad about it.

The question seems absurd. What is there to be sad about?

And yet, inexplicably, I am.

*****

Hermione's starting to have that swayback walk about her. Harry isn't quite there yet. She's also beginning to complain about swollen ankles.

She lets me feel it move. "There, do you feel that?" she says, her hand over mine on her belly.

I do.

She smiles.

Harry has just started to feel his as well. He doesn't smile. There's a look of disquiet on his face when he feels it shift inside him.

*****

I look at Severus.

"Voldemort didn't say anything about you being unlucky for me?"

"Actually, I told him that we now have very solid evidence that we can conceive together, miscarriage or no."

"Did you now. Isn't that nice for you."

He doesn't answer.

"Why do you want to keep doing this, Severus? You eager for your own little heir? You kinky for hermaphrodites? Or I am just the closest you could ever get to Remus, by taking what he left behind?"

I have no idea what possessed me to say that last part.

And I clearly did not expect the reaction it gets.

As usual, Severus keeps his expression neutral when I start the sarcasm. But as soon as I say Remus's name, he jerks.

His eyes blaze as I finish the question.

"How dare you," he hisses.

And stops.

I don't have to say it: How dare I? ME?

He's already hearing it, hanging in the air between us, unspoken. It's all over his face.

Whoa. What... just happened, there?

We don't talk. Not for the entire rest of the time.

His desire to get it over with as fast as possible is palpable, in the room. Yet I can feel how he gets control of himself, makes himself go slowly. Sticking to his resolve not to hurt me.

I thought he might try to avoid looking at my face but he doesn't. He keeps his eyes on me the entire time.

Almost like it's a penance.

*****

Our efforts are not rewarded that month. I'm not pregnant.

Harry's feeling more movement. He watches his belly shifting under its own power with something between ick and wow on his face.

Hermione still looks tired. Moreso. She and Harry have conversations about the least uncomfortable positions for sleeping.

*****

"Is it normal to have headaches?" Hermione asks.

Severus looks at her. Something in the way he pauses before answering makes us all look at her.

"Sometimes. Have you had them since the beginning?"

"I had them at the beginning. They went away for a little while but now they're back."

He nods slowly.

"They're usually normal."

*****

Harry's requests are still carefully spaced, but his wish to have more time outside of the cell is his most frequent one. He meant with Hermione and me, but he gets it in a different way than he expected: Lucius spends some of their time together not merely in bed with him, but just accompanying him: walking, teaching him chess moves, that sort of thing.

I can see that Harry comes to crave this time with him. Yet he disciplines himself fiercely not to jump at every chance. I realize that's for my sake. He's gone long enough, and I'm out of the cell much less frequently-- he hates abandoning me.

One day it's Harry's turn to make me laugh, when he tells me that one of the Death Eaters muttered something about Harry's appearance and Lucius actually hit the man in the face with his cane.

"So he broke his nose because he called you fat?"

We howl for an hour over that one.

*****

He also tells me, again with the seeming that he needs to tell someone, that Lucius seems to have a fondness for feeling the baby move under his hands when he makes love to Harry.

I'm not sure I wanted to know that. But I murmur something reassuring.

*****

Hermione, on the other hand, volunteers no information about how Draco treats her.

I wonder if that's a good sign or a bad.

*****

The next time Severus and I are alone I follow that line of questions. It'll serve to keep us away from the topic we got too near last time.

"Does Lucius talk to you about Harry?"

Severus looks at me.

"Do you get any idea at all about how he really feels about him? Or is that all an extended part of Voldemort's plot?"

I really hope it isn't, for all that the alternative is weird enough. If it were, I would expect Severus would have had instructions to be behaving the same way towards me.

Unless they're both subtler than I'm giving them credit for.

Severus looks away. After a few moments he speaks very quietly.

"Lucius was enamoured of the idea of defiling The Boy Who Lived, I'm quite sure. That was at first. Somewhere it went from defiling to merely corrupting. Now..." He doesn't speak again for a few moments. "I think he was unprepared for one of the boy's most powerful weapons."

"What's that?" I ask, knowing he wants me to but willingly playing along. He's giving me the answers, after all.

"His essential artless virtue. Stupid of Lucius. He knows the boy's a Gryffindor, after all. In someone lesser Lucius could enjoy ruining that virtue. But I think Potter is exceptional, even for a Gryffindor."

"You don't need to tell me that."

"No, I don't, do I?" He arches an eyebrow in a way that could almost pass for a smile, coming from him, despite the fact that there's nothing like a smile on his face. "For all that he's a cheeky little brat, there's a core of goodness to him that men like Lucius think they find contemptible. But under the right circumstances, it becomes endearing, all the same."

"Are you supposed to be saying this out loud?"

Severus shrugs. "He knows. Voldemort sees it. He finds it amusing, that's all. It doesn't matter if I speak of it."

"What about Draco?"

"Draco?" Both eyebrows lifted this time, and if there's humor there, it's the contemptuous kind. "Draco is sixteen."

"So's Harry."

"Don't pretend to be thick. The circumstances couldn't be more different. Draco's no more capable of sorting out what he feels for her than he is of understanding that he'll be a father in a few months."

"Will he be?"

"What?"

"A father. Or is his work done, as far as that goes? Come on, Severus, I'm not pretending to be that thick. They're hardly going to let him raise the grub, are they?"

"Why are you asking this, Black?" he says. "You know there's no answer I can make. Would you believe me if I said she'll be allowed to see the child? Would I tell you if you were going to be killed as soon as you delivered?"

"Well, not as soon. You'd wait until all of us had delivered before you killed us, so that the others wouldn't have any warning."

"Oh, very clever, Black. You should be the one making the plans."

"Yeah, it's amazing how much you get to think like the enemy after months of imprisonment."

That quiets him.

But I'm not interested in winding him up any more today.

As I get my clothing off, I realize that my arms are over goosebumps, as if it's cold in the room, or if this were the first time. But it's neither.

I realize that I'm actually wanting the physical contact.

I've been so careful not to impose any unwanted touching on Harry that I'm probably giving off the same signal in reverse. Which isn't really what I'm feeling. It's difficult, starving for contact.

I've been envious of what Harry's getting from Lucius.

I don't think about Remus this time. But I also don't have to do any active blocking of the fact that it's Severus. It doesn't matter. I just allow myself to focus on the fact that it's touch, and that does not seem disturbing.

Sigh. I guess this could be how they're working it, as well.

He lies next to me, afterward, for a while. That's a little different. Unless one of us has something to say he usually doesn't linger.

Either he's giving me an opportunity to spend a little more time out of the cell, or he wants to do it again. I won't be able to stop him if it's the latter, not unless I'm willing to pay the price for resisting, so I don't waste time worrying about it.

"Is it really normal for Hermione to be having those headaches?" I ask.

Severus doesn't answer.

"Oh, just tell me," I grouse. "Otherwise you'll leave me thinking the worst possible outcomes."

"Headaches happen frequently in pregnancy without being anything ominous."

I lift my head and look at him. "Oh, thanks, Severus, you've really relieved all my fears. What kind of answer was that?"

"It's the truth. Stop bothering me about it."

We're at his tolerance already? Hell. That means he is bothered by it.

"Look, if she really is sick, you're not going to make us feel more reassured by hiding it. Is she in any danger? You've already been a party to one death, Snape." I didn't mean to make that come out so hatefully, but I don't seem to be able to talk about it any other way.

Severus sits up. He looks at me. "I should not care what you think of me, Black. Or what you say of me. But hear this: I did not know he intended to kill Remus Lupin. I was in the room when it happened. I agreed to serve Voldemort. For that alone, yes, I am guilty of a part in his death. But I did...not...know."

Oh, no. He should know not to try to defend himself on this one. My laughter is not a pleasant sound. "And what are you telling me, Snape? You telling me that if you'd known, you'd have stopped him? Refused to stay in his service? Thrown yourself in front of the bullet?"

He gets up slowly, controlled. Pulls on his clothing without taking his eyes off mine.

"If there was ever one man in the world," he says, "that was truly stainless, that would never have harmed another, said a harsh word against another, that had a virtue that could never be touched, it wouldn't have been your Boy Who Lived, Sirius. He may come close, but even he couldn't match Remus Lupin."

That's all he says. He's dressed, and he leaves.

And I'm left to stare after him.

*****

One day we're informed that Hermione won't be accompanying us for a walk. She's been told to stay off her feet.

They do let us go to see her. Under guard, we sit in her cell and talk with her. (Are they still worried we're gonna throw ourselves on her for a quick shag if they're not there? God.) She doesn't look particularly ill, just tired. She seems to have a headache all the time now.

Harry cheers her up by poking at her swollen ankles and joking, "What, is this what you're complaining about? Mine are WAY bigger." And proceeds to show her.

"You see?" she says, shaking her head. "This is EXACTLY why they don't let men have the babies. It's always a "Mine's BIGGER!" competition about EVERYTHING!"

When we leave her she does look in better spirits. Harry tells the guards that stress isn't good for pregnancy, and it would be best for all concerned if the visits continue, and surely that isn't much to ask, is it?

They concede.

*****

On the next visit, she's complaining that the light hurts her eyes.

I ask one of the guards to see Severus.

The guard refuses. I don't ask him again.

*****

Lucius comes for Harry later that day.

I don't want to worry Harry. That's not easy, because he can already tell that I'm worried.

Nevertheless, I give it a try.

"Malfoy."

Lucius looks at me.

"Will you ask Severus to please come talk to me."

He raises those aristocratic eyebrows of his, but it isn't a sneer. "I will if I see him, Black."

"Could you make a point of seeing him. Please."

Lucius looks at Harry, who is giving him that same near-pleading look.

Even if I don't succeed, Harry may.

But he says, "Severus is gone right now. When I see him I shall give him your...message."

I can't think of anything else to do. Not without throwing a fit, and right now that's not going to help.

*****

Harry tells me, later, that he asked Lucius to please try to contact Severus. I know he must know that I want to see him because of Hermione, but why should I be surprised? My track record so far for trying to protect him sucks; why should this be any different?

Severus doesn't come that day.

On the next, when we're with Hermione, she falls silent in mid-sentence, turns her face to the side, twitches once, and doesn't speak to us again. Harry shakes her. Her eyes are half-closed and they stay that way.

Now it's time to throw a fit.

If what's happened to Hermione wasn't so terrifying, I'd say throwing that fit feels good.

More guards come. They try to take us back to our cell.

It takes force.

They get me back in more easily because they're not afraid to manhandle me. It takes longer to return Harry to the cell, as they try to find a balance of force that will make him go where he doesn't want to go, without hurting him, without using magic on him.

That's a very bad night.

*****

Neither of us leaves the cell for another two weeks.

Lucius doesn't come. Severus doesn't come. We're not allowed to see Hermione.

Pleading doesn't help, screaming doesn't help, threatening doesn't help. And we do a lot of all three.

The threats are particularly useless. Harry can insist he'll do harm to himself all he wants, but they know he won't do it. Not while we don't know what's happening to Hermione.

After a few days, I tell Harry something that I know is true, for all that it's meant to reassure him.

"They aren't letting Lucius or Severus come to see us. Because of what's happening with Hermione and how we're reacting. They would come if they could."

Harry doesn't challenge that statement. Good. He knows it's the truth, then.

"Do you think she's all right?" he asks me for the thousandth time.

"Voldemort wants the baby. He can't let her come to harm if he wants the baby to make it."

But that's the part that I can't make sound convincing.

*****

At the end of the two weeks, guards come.

They point to me. "You. You only."

"NO," says Harry. "I want to SEE her. What the fuck is going ON?"

"We can still hurt him," says one, indicating me, "if you try to resist."

I don't tell him to let it go. Hell, I don't care. They can do what they want to me.

But, seething, he backs down.

"I'll find out what I can," I promise him.

*****

But it's not Hermione they take me to see. I realize that as soon as I see what direction we're going, and that's why it's only me.

Goddammit, they've remembered that I'm ovulating again.

Snape's already in the room. The door closes behind me.

"Severus." My throat is dry. "Is she all right? Is she alive?"

He's standing with his arms tightly folded. "She's ill."

"No fucking SHIT. What the hell is going on?"

"Black--"

"TELL me, goddammit!"

"Sirius. He won't let me see her."

That stops me.

He steps closer to me. Comes very close. His voice is just above a whisper:

"He summoned me back, to see her, just after she had the seizure. I think it's called toxaemia. She's sick. The pregnancy's making her sick. This happens, sometimes. The cure is to deliver the baby." He pauses. "I told Voldemort that and he asked what would happen if the baby was delivered this early."

No.

Severus goes on: "He won't let her be delivered. I told him she's far enough along, at thirty weeks, that the baby could still make it. He won't allow it. Not yet. Says he wants to be sure. I told him that if she dies, the fetus certainly will too. Sometimes the fetus dies first, because of the mother being so sick. He doesn't care. Says she can stay pregnant a few more weeks. If it looks like she's going to die he said he'll cut it out of her."

Trust Severus to know not to couch it in any gentle terms.

"Do something," I say.

"They won't let me go near her. I told Voldemort this was the wrong thing to do; he'll lose them both. He ordered me away. I have asked him every single day, Sirius. Today he told me to get out of his sight and get working on my 'other part of the experiment,' as he called it."

"Do something else." This isn't happening. She's doing everything they want. Complying. Submitting. This can't be happening to her.

"Do you not think I am trying?" he hisses. "Voldemort knows very well that I would intervene if he gives me any opportunity. He is making sure I have none."

I find myself sitting on the edge of the bed. "When will he let her have it?" says a voice that seems too distant to be mine.

Severus inhales slowly. "Another two weeks. Don't ask to see her. He won't allow it. Lucius is upset that he won't let him visit Harry. The only reason you've been allowed to see me is..." His voice trails off. He doesn't have to finish; we both know.

We seem to have nothing else to say for a time. At last Severus sits down next to me, and we continue the silence.

"Will she be all right... if she lives?" I say at last.

He shakes his head. "I don't know. My hope is that she will go into labor by herself. Sometimes that happens, when the body knows that it is sick from the pregnancy. But to stay like that for so long..." He shakes his head again. "She could develop brain damage."

I turn my head to look at him. "You could fix that."

Slowly he nods. "If she lives."

If she doesn't, there's no fixing anything. Oh, fuck.

"I don't know how much of this you want to tell Harry."

None of it. "I'll figure it out."

I wonder why I am so quick to believe everything Severus says. Not about Hermione's condition-- I don't see any reason he'd lie about that-- but about him not being able to do anything.

But I do believe him.

I don't notice when it is that we go from sitting there like that to lying on the bed together, still clothed but that changing too by degrees, until at last we've moved to the purpose that has brought us together in that room, and this time I remember that Severus does kiss me on the mouth, and that I think that that should disturb me but I can't be bothered, today, to work up outrage or even a mental shudder over something that small, and he takes his time again, I do notice that.

I notice the expression on his face when he's driving deep into me. Nothing so simple as a reaction to physical sensation is displayed there. But it's so far from simple that I have a hard time reading it.

Orgasm lets me forget, for a time.

Later, I murmur, "Severus." He doesn't move but I know he's listening. "Please do whatever you can. If you want something from me I'll give it to you. Whatever you want."

He shakes his head. "Don't, Black." He gets up and starts to dress. He doesn't elaborate further and I know that he's saying he intends to do all he can anyway.

I still feel the need to give him something, to beg his help.

I give him something that would have cost me too much, not long ago.

"Severus. You were in love with Remus, weren't you?"

He stops what he's doing. Resumes a minute later.

Dressed, he looks at me where I'm lying, and says: "Remus was one of the best people who ever walked this earth. Had your little circle been the Arthurian Round Table, Black, he would have been Galahad, selfless and incorruptible and not one degree short of deserving canonization."

He turns away, puts his hand on the door, and I hear him say, "But he wasn't the one I was in love with."

And he leaves.

Before I can get up and confront him.

The bastard.

"What the hell does that mean? Snape, goddamn you, how dare you fucking throw that at me and try to run away--"

The door opens. The guards are waiting to take me back to the cell.

*****

I tell Harry about Hermione. I do couch it in gentler terms for him.

I also don't fail to tell him what Severus said about Lucius.

*****

No one comes for a week. We try not to plead or rant. Maybe if they feel we're acting calmly they'll relent.

No one comes for another week.

Looking after Harry helps me get through. I make him eat, finding that the baby really is useful blackmail for that.

It's remarkable, how he's come to terms with it. The baby. He didn't ask for it, so he shouldn't have to feel responsible for it. But somewhere around the time it started moving, he told me he'd come to see it as a guest, in the same way that ancient tradition said that you were responsible for your guest's welfare, and to do him harm under your own roof was the grossest crime imaginable.

God, I have to get him out of here. Somehow. I can't be passive any longer.

I don't have the appetite to eat, though I try, as an example for Harry.

Two days later, I hear it: "Sirius."

I'm at the cell door immediately, Harry next to me almost as quickly, for all that he has to get his pregnant bulk up from a sitting position. Severus is visible at the cell door bars.

He looks at us.

"She died."

I hear Harry suck in his breath and stumble back.

Severus doesn't say anything else. Not I'm sorry or There was nothing I could do.

I'm glad of that.

"The baby," I say.

"Alive," he says. "It appears it will live."

They must have cut it out of her, like they threatened.

I look back at Harry. He's retreated all the way to the opposite wall, where he slid down it, sitting with his back pressed to it, arms crossed on his chest. Shivering.

Looking at nothing.

When I look back at the door, Severus is gone.

*****

I can't get Harry to move away from the wall.

*****

Or speak.

*****

Or eat or drink.

*****

And I don't think he sleeps, either. He stares.

"Harry. Harry, please. Please try."

A cup put to his lips just spills the water down his chin. He won't.

"Harry, come on. It's not good if you get dehydrated."

Oh, god. I can't do this. Once again, I learn just how I can't save my godson.

*****

He doesn't even cry.

Is this what they call catatonia?

*****

After four days I appeal to the guards.

Of course, their first tack is to threaten my welfare. Which doesn't bother me, except Harry doesn't seem to hear them.

Hushed conferences outside the door. Different footsteps coming and going.

At one point I think I feel Voldemort's red eyes on me. I jerk awake, finding that I've fallen asleep next to Harry, and look toward the door. No one's there but a guard.

I forget to eat myself. Actually it isn't forgetting. I feel too sick to eat.

And then I remember.

They got sloppy. They remembered to make Severus and I have sex while I was ovulating, but they forgot the aura charm three days later.

I think I might actually be pregnant again.

I didn't have the nausea before.

Maybe that means I'm not going to miscarry this time.

*****

A day later the door opens, and it's Lucius.

He crosses to Harry. I back up and let him kneel in front of him, in the position I was just in.

He touches Harry's face with his fingertips. "Harry. Caro." His voice is soft.

No response.

He leans in to kiss his cheek. "Harry. Let it out. I'm here."

Lucius slides his arms around my godson, lifting him up just enough to pull Harry against him, into an embrace completely of his own making, as Harry still doesn't respond. He strokes Harry's back, murmuring similar endearments and words of reassurance, and, miracle of miracles, I think I see Harry's eyelids twitch almost closed.

"Come, caro. For the child's sake if not your own. For my sake if not your own."

He kisses Harry on the mouth, and I see Harry's arm lift, drape over Lucius's back, his fingers splayed and just beginning to curl.

Lucius breaks the kiss and looks at me, his arms still around Harry. I can hardly read his expression; I'm sure he can't read mine. I don't want to be grateful to this man but he's doing something for Harry that I can't, and I have to get over myself on this one. I'm not important here; Harry is.

He looks toward the door. "Let me take him out of here."

The one guarding the door shakes his head. "They're not to leave the cell. No exceptions, not even for you, Lucius."

I see how Lucius tempers his expression, as if he feels it would be a waste of a perfectly good smouldering glare to release it on the man at the door. He turns back to Harry almost briskly, kisses his face again.

I hear a hitch in Harry's breathing.

Lucius meets my eyes again. Now I can read his expression. There's a touch of arrogance there, as if he's grafted the words I'm Lucius Malfoy, you cur onto the beginning of what he's telling me, which is and I'm doing this whether you watch or not.

I push myself back to the corner of the cell. But I don't turn away.

It isn't that I want to watch. But I can't do anything else.

Lucius pulls Harry the few feet necessary to lay him down on one of the mattresses, and Harry doesn't resist him; already he's lost that rigidity to his limbs that I couldn't pull him out of when he was sitting against the wall. Lucius kisses his face, his throat, smooths his hair back from his forehead like a parent checking a child for a fever. Kisses him on the scar.

Sliding onto the mattress next to him, over him, at an angle that accommodates Harry's pregnant belly, Lucius puts a hand beneath Harry's passive chin and begins to kiss him on the mouth in a way that makes me think that if everyone could kiss like that, the human race would have died out long ago, because no one would ever have gotten beyond that to actually discover sex. He kisses him the same way I imagine him enjoying a meal with many courses, appreciating the different textures, different flavors and temperatures of each, enjoying the way it takes so long to get to everything. Harry's hands are on Lucius's shoulders, pressing at him with the pads of his fingers, and his eyes are closed all the way now as he kisses back.

I think I can see tears welling at the closed line of his lashes. One runs over and down his temple.

Thank god.

Oh, Harry.

Oh, Remy.

Lucius slides Harry's shirt up from his waist-- he doesn't have to unbutton it to do this, the shirts Harry's wearing these days are huge on him, to accommodate his belly-- and runs his hand over that oval surface, tenderly, reverently. Harry makes a noise in his throat; his eyes open, and more tears spill over. Lucius whispers something to Harry, not meant for me to hear, but I hear the structure of the t's and p's in the sentence and know that he said I will not let anything happen to you.

Words I never could say to Harry because I couldn't make them come true.

Lucius finishes pulling the shirt off, takes Harry in his arms again and kisses down from his throat to his chest, where he begins to tongue one of Harry's nipples, and then the other, as Harry breathes a choked sigh and lifts his hands to the back of Lucius's head, twining his fingers in the man's hair, clutching in a way that looks like it must hurt but which Lucius endures without reacting, except to mouth his chest harder, biting at each nipple now, until he gets a cry out of Harry, who bites his own lip and arches his back under Lucius's mouth.

Lucius brings both of his hands to Harry's abdomen again, stroking, not in a way that is tender anymore, but is light and teasing and amazingly goddamn erotic to watch. Like this, with Malfoy treating his entire body as something sexual and desirable and very, very fuckable, Harry's pregnant belly doesn't look absurd on him at all. I look at the way Harry throws the back of his hand against his eyes while he pants and I ache at the beauty of him.

Again I ask myself how I can be watching this, Lucius Malfoy having his way with my godson, not ten feet away from me in a prison cell.

A voice in my head says There's nothing to judge, or feel guilty for, Siri. They're beautiful together, aren't they?

Remy's voice.

I continue to watch though my eyes are full of tears now. We were like that, Remy. You were like that-- so beautiful. I miss you so goddamn much.

So goddamn much.

I don't let myself sob. I keep the crying quiet, for Harry's sake.

Lucius has the rest of Harry's clothing off now. Harry has his arms around Lucius, and seems not to want to let go of him, not even to let Lucius get undressed. Lucius soothes him, murmurs those gentle endearments in Italian, maybe in other languages I can't identify. Harry murmurs things that should make me blush to hear them, for all that they are nothing more than Please and I need you. To hear that coming from him should make me ashamed; instead I feel the ache for Remy only intensify.

Soon they are skin on skin, and Lucius continues to explore his body with fingertip and tongue as if it is the first time, always returning to his mouth, to kiss it, to take possession of it with his own mouth, as if breathing something addictive into Harry's bloodstream as he does so. Harry kisses back fiercely, again fisting his hands in Lucius's hair until Lucius takes a hold of his wrists and pulls them away, pinning them at Harry's sides while they kiss like it's a battle, each trying to win at the expense of the other.

Finally, both of them breathless (no wonder Harry's mouth always looked swollen), Lucius pulls away and rolls Harry, not to his stomach but his side, where he slides behind him and sets to biting the juncture between his neck and his shoulder. Harry hisses, pushing his mouth against his own arm to muffle it, as Lucius continues, sliding his arms about Harry from behind, running his hands over his abdomen again and then down to his cock, and between his legs. Harry moans as Lucius takes the girth of his cock into one hand, and moans again and arches when the fingertips of Lucius's other hand begin to move in small circles on the flesh beneath his balls.

"Tesoro mio," Lucius murmurs as he strokes him, biting his earlobe now. Harry gasps, does so again as Lucius's tongue swirls out to lick the shell of his ear. "Open for me, caro." Harry arches again and cries out "Ah--" as Lucius presses inside him with his fingers, I can hear how wet Harry is when he does that, and Lucius continues to stroke his cock with the other hand, wetness shining there too, on the tip of Harry's erect cock. Harry's hands look for somewhere to clutch: on the mattress, on empty air, as Lucius wrests feeling out of him despite all he has been doing to feel nothing for the past five days.

Lucius takes his hands away only to pull up Harry's thigh, the one that's uppermost, by way of one hand behind his knee, so that he can push his own cock into Harry from behind. Harry moans, and then I see Lucius do something with his hand interposed between their bodies and Harry shudders, and I know that he's penetrated his arse with a finger as well, and Harry pushes back against the twin penetration, begging with his body and his whimpers for Lucius to fuck him, fuck him harder, make him unafraid to feel by reintroducing him to feeling by way of something that will not hurt, in the way that his best friend's death will hurt when he finally allows himself to feel that.

They pulse together like something boneless, like one organism with only one cell to its body. Harry gasps, driven by him, by each slow thrust, Lucius still doing nothing quickly. Harry's skin is flushed, the color making him look more alive than he has in months.

Lucius stops suddenly and withdraws from him, Harry groaning in response. Lucius moves away from Harry's back and puts him on his back again, spreading Harry's thighs apart and crawling between them.

I watch, completely transfixed, at how Lucius penetrates him again while carefully keeping his body above Harry's, accommodating the shape of his pregnant belly, hands on Harry's hip as he slides inside him, one lifting away to settle on the taut ball of his abdomen, stroking again as he begins the rhythm between them anew. Harry reaches for him; Lucius's other hand reaches back and captures one of Harry's, bringing it to his lips, kissing the palm while looking into Harry's eyes the entire time. "Amo, ami..." he says.

"Ama, amiamo..." Harry murmurs back.

"Amate, amano," they finish together, Lucius kissing the fingers of Harry's hand for every word that is spoken.

I'm staring and I'm weeping and I'm hard all at the same time.

And I understand that expression on Lucius's face. It comes to me as abruptly, as sharply as a ray of that sunlight that we haven't seen for so long.

I saw that expression somewhere else. Recently.

I couldn't read it then.

I know what it meant, now.

Harry whines as the rhythm builds. Lucius isn't silent either, groaning as he thrusts, as Harry wraps his legs around Lucius's hips and grabs for his lover's shoulders at the same time. I don't know whose face to look at, anymore.

Lucius's own hands are busy at the juncture of their bodies, fisting Harry's cock at the same time his other hand slides between them, working everything of Harry's that begs attention, from balls to clitoris to anus. Harry's hands move from Lucius's shoulders and clutch at the mattress beneath him, even as his legs wrap tighter. He cries out, arching his neck back so violently I can see every cord in his neck outlined, fingers scoring into the mattress as he comes.

Lucius too cries out, moments after that, surrendering to Harry as he comes, conceding that to Harry for just that one minute in time. He keeps himself from collapsing on top of Harry by leaning on his hands, lowering himself slowly as he pulls out so that he can curl about him at an angle and not put weight on Harry's belly.

In that position, his lover holding him, Harry's sobs, and not merely the tears, finally break free.

*****

Harry eats and drinks a little, that night. Allows us to get him cleaned up a bit, and even does some of that himself.

Lucius holds him before he leaves and tells him he will return as soon as Voldemort permits it again. Though all of us know there's no way of knowing when that'll be.

Harry lets me hold him that night, trusting, childlike, and I'm as soothed by the contact as he. He is able to sleep at last.

I lie awake longer. Soon, someone will remember to check. They'll know I'm pregnant again.

There's nothing I can do about that.

No, goddammit. I have to stop thinking like that right now. I have to get Harry out of here somehow. What happens to me doesn't matter. I can't save it up any more; I have to come up with something to do. There's only the two of us left now.

Harry wakes and weeps in the middle of the night, but that is all right. That's only grief, and nothing can spare him that.

I wonder if Draco will grieve.

I may never know.

*****

Next day I think about telling Harry about my being pregnant but immediately drop that as a bad idea. If the opportunity arises for me to do something to help Harry at the cost of my own welfare I don't want him to know; he might try that same kind of blackmail he's been subjected to. Don't want that.

Remus. Remus, I'm pregnant. Not by you. If it could have been you it would have been all right.

As Severus said, Remus was the best soul of all. I know he would forgive me. More, he would wonder what there was to forgive.

There's a voice from outside the cell. It says a word, twice, and each time the word's accompanied by a sharp crackle, followed by a heavy crash right outside the door.

From that context, I reconstruct what I heard. The word was Stupefy.

We're at the door but not as fast as Severus opens it and pushes into the room.

"Two minutes," he says, "not more. Take this."

He's fumbling in his robes for something, and all I can process is that he's breathing fast and that he still has his wand out. No one's ever been allowed to have a wand anywhere near us.

This would be the moment for me to grab it and use it.

But my hands are suddenly filled by what Severus pushes into them. A small empty glass jar.

"Take it, " Severus says quickly, despite his breathing. "Harry too. Portkey. Place is warded against even bringing portkeys in. That one has a ten-minute muting spell. Used up eight getting here. Two minutes it'll set the alarms off whether it's used or not. It activates the same time. Take this too just in case." He pushes his wand into my hand as well. "Information and what you'll need is laid out for you when you get there. Package on the table. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about Remus and Hermione. God help me, take a hold of it, now, both of you!" he yells.

I look at Harry, who has backed away a step during this. His eyes are wide and he says, "What about--"

Severus hisses, a sound of frustration. "Black, don't let him do this. Make him touch it and don't let him pull away."

"No!" says Harry, but it's forward that he's stepping, clutching my arm. "I'm not-- asking about Lucius. About-- Hermione's baby."

Severus exhales. "I can't. I don't know where he took it. They wouldn't even tell me what gender it was. This is all I can do, Potter."

Harry swallows. Doesn't let go of my arm, puts his hand on the jar. He knew what we we're thinking, and I know he was thinking it too. But he didn't let it affect his ability to act.

I look at Severus. There can't be more that a minute left before it activates.

"What are you doing standing over there, then?"

His arms are folded tightly, mouth is set. Trying to give me his best intimidating glare but I'm not one of his fucking students.

"He'll kill you."

"How clever of you, Black. Killing's hardly a new thing for him, is it?"

Only a few seconds left to do this.

How long has it been since I did something?

I reach out and grab his wrist, jerk it so hard he stumbles towards us, and I wrap his hand around Harry's hand and the jar and mine around theirs; he can't possibly pull away. "You want to make up for Remus and Hermione? Fine. Then I'm going to be the one to pass judgment, not you. I sentence you to life." I'm snarling like I'm back in my canine form. "The rest of your life spent serving the side that isn't Voldemort's, until you pay off that debt. And since you can't pay it off, goddamn you, it will be your entire life. Do you fucking understand me?" My voice breaks. "And you can never, ever replace Remus. Do you fucking understand that?"

His face, so uncharacteristically expressionless during my rant, at last gets a little of his familiar sneer back. "I thought I told you there was no one who could ever do that."

"Got something we agree on after all, don't we, you prick?"

And the portkey activates.

The place we arrive is indoors.

But there are windows.

And the first thing I see is the sunlight, almost too bright to bear.

*****

Harry, innocent creature that he is, forgives Lucius for not loving him enough to sacrifice himself for Harry's freedom. Even I cannot hate him. A man like Lucius Malfoy could never love that selflessly, and that he loved him at all is remarkable.

But none of us, even Severus, know if he loves Harry enough to let us stay free. Enough for us to risk the contact.

Harry understands this, and does not press us.

Though I know it is eating him alive. He's only seventeen.

He rejoices that his child is not born in captivity.

Severus takes the news of my own pregnancy with a mixed display of emotions. I have to tell him right away, as he wonders why I'm not transforming into my animagus form the moment we're out of the dampening effect of our prison. (Another reason to be really pissed off. I want my canine form almost as much as I wanted sunlight.)

He had thought that we would have more options for travel and hiding, once Harry was delivered and not so dramatic a sight. That will have to change our plans, with me about to become a similarly odd attention-getter.

It really fucking bites that there's so little magic known to be safe in pregnancy. Disguise spells would be so straightforward...

Yet after Harry delivers, Severus cannot hide his amazement that my pregnancy will bring forth another one of these, and this one his, and it's as vulnerable as I've ever seen him.

He cannot replace Remy. And what he did for Harry and me does not repay the deaths.

But he was willing to give all he had, to try.

It created a truce.

Even if he is in love with me, I do not know if more can be created.

But we are too few for me to try to keep up walls. Even emotional ones.

Especially emotional ones.

And I watch Harry as he babbles nonsense at his daughter, and cradles her until she sleeps, and stares in wonder at this small, perfect human being that he created, and I think, if something like that can be made from such minute beginnings... then who is to say?

And I wonder if a day will come when we can risk the contact, and find where Lucius Malfoy's true loyalties lie.

And if he and Harry will ever hold their daughter together.

 

-fin


End file.
